More than 1.6 million people registered for the lottery for free tickets to Jackson’s memorial. A total of 8,750 were chosen to receive two tickets each.  

Los Angeles was the epicenter of Jackson-mania, but the outpouring of emotion was worldwide. Belgium’s two national public broadcasters planned to broadcast the memorial live, and several hundred Jackson fans gathered at a Hong Kong mall late Tuesday.

In America, about 50 movie theaters across the country, from Los Angeles to Topeka, Kan., and Washington, D.C., planned to show the memorial live, for free. Jackson died at age 50 on June 25.

“There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people’s imaginations. And in death, they become even larger,” President Barack Obama told CBS while in Moscow. “Now, I have to admit that it’s also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable.”

With the interest in massive pop culture events like this, it makes you wonder what it could have been like as a web conference event.  Literally, a billion people might have tuned in.   There are not many instances like this that could draw a billion people, other than major elections or the olympics.

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